


Sea Change

by chennieforyourthoughts



Series: Vessel in the Bloodline [1]
Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Pirate, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Boats and Ships, Half-Elves, M/M, The rum isn't gone, non-graphic injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:20:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23209171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chennieforyourthoughts/pseuds/chennieforyourthoughts
Summary: Jongho knows that Yeosang was born a child of the sea, ready to sail the first chance he gets. Lucky for Yeosang, Jongho and his crew are looking for a half-elf to take for ransom—even though they are expecting the princess instead of her twin.
Relationships: Choi Jongho/Kang Yeosang
Series: Vessel in the Bloodline [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1673113
Comments: 1
Kudos: 82





	Sea Change

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt #25: "Jongho is a pirate whose task is to kidnap the princess for ransom. Things get a little mixed up and Jongho ends up kidnapping the crown prince instead. In his defense... Yeosang is definitely just as pretty as the princess... if not prettier."
> 
> Thank you for the prompt, I had a ton of fun with it and hope you enjoy it!

> Nothing of him that doth fade
> 
> But doth suffer a sea-change
> 
> \- _The Tempest_

i. ~

There is something that creeps and creeps in, until it fades back from where it came. It creeps and fades in Jongho’s mind, too, when it is not the steady toss-toss-toss under the flat of his bodyor his toes.

There is something that whispers in Yeosang’s ears. It is a hushed thing, for it knows that it cannot call to him loudly, but it remains; it is the one constant.

It’s there when Yeosang shrugs a satin dress of his sister’s over his shoulders and has her chambermaid lace him up, welkin shades lighter than the calm seas he loves. He peers over it when he gets to the market, however, long-stranded hair twisting and knotting in the breeze. He does not expend the effort to secure it or tie it because he is supposed to wear it long today. Glamour is simple for him, and he uses just enough to disguise where his borrowed cloths don’t hide enough.

Jongho hears of it later, though he has to take swigs of the rum belowdecks to make it through the story. But it’s San who approached Yeosang first, all wide eyes and dusty, freckled skin that does not come from the sun, although Jongho is now responsible for him.

“We’re voting!” Comes the shout from above deck, Seonghwa not bothering to descend when his voice carries far. Jongho sets the jug down and corks it, and hauls Yeosang to his feet. Their princeling sways, but Jongho stays steady as he leads the way up the stairs. The rest of the crew is gathered, barely enough to man the ship for day to day sailing and decidedly not enough for a skirmish—not that Yeosang seems to know this, all wide eyes blinded by the glint off the water. They’re afloat with no wind, just far enough out in the bay to be able to make a run for it if a fleet comes after them…. assuming the wind picks up.

“So, princeling,” Hongjoong begins, and Jongho watches Yeosang begin to pick at the loose threads on the sleeves of his borrowed tunic. “Do you think they’ll bargain, or do you think they’ll blow us to smithereens?”

~ ii.

The wheel cuts into Jongho’s palms, unforgiving wood pressing into familiar places along his fingers. The wood beneath his feet groans, too, an eerie, living creak that had made Yeosang freeze the first time he heard it. Despite the crew’s strongest warnings, their prize had decided to stay on the deck, but to Jongho’s relief he stayed as far as he could get from the action and the men on the ropes as he could get. The same storm that had scattered the fleet from their pursuit strikes at Hongjoong’s lady, the ship climbing the waves alone as far as Wooyoung up in the crow’s nest can see.

Jongho does not fear this storm, although he respects it. His feet slip across the slickened wood, but he holds fast and steers true. It is too loud to hear.

He can, however, see through the pelting sheets of rain as San slips. Jongho does not gasp, too startled by the unnatural occurrence to stop what he is doing and help. It is not until after San slides from port to starboard that he notices the rope coiling out, loose and unheld. Yunho makes a grab at it but risks losing the cannon he is already corralling with Mingi, so Jongho tightens his fingers around the saturated wood and tries his best to make the ride smoother for them.

Metal races across the deck. Not even Yunho will be fast enough to catch it with a song, seeing as he has tried unsuccessfully to sing the seas into submission for days now—and the line goes taught. Jongho blinks the water, salt and fresh, from his eyes, but his vision does not become any clearer.

Yeosang clings to the lines of the cannon, and the crew watches as he reels them in hand over hand. His feet do not slip, even as Hongjoong stumbles on the way over to help him. His hair whirls upwards but he barely strains, steadier than their boat could possibly be in the tempest. But he, the prince who took his sister’s place, secures the cannon in its place and ties it off.

He is the only one standing besides Jongho, who clings to the helm, and clings to Yeosang’s eyes. They are grey, elven grey, and the vessel of the sea sings in the prince’s blood.

iii. ~

Yeosang is fast enough that nobody catches him in the act, but Yunho brings Jongho what’s left once it is done. Feet of deep brown pool in Yunho’s palms as Jongho looks it over, chest sinking. It is practical, however, and Jongho knows Seonghwa will be pleased, as short hair means fewer dangers.

Even when they take their soup belowdecks that night, Yeosang is just as pretty as when they first met him. It makes Jongho’s skin prickle, an odd sort of jealousy, because he knows the prince will never belong to him. Yeosang belongs to his country first and his sea second, although it is less of the sea being his than him being the sea’s. For all elves are children of the sea, this even Jongho with his limited folk tales knows, just as San is a child of the sea and Wooyoung is a child of the air and Yunho is master.

“They won’t find me in foreign ports based on my picture now,” Yeosang whispers, and it’s so quiet over the noises of the ship that Jongho barely hears it. “If you lot would like me gone, you’ll have to toss me overboard.”

~ iv.

The princeling is right, of course. The very first port they come to, clothes salt-crusted from weathering the waves of the storm, has a picture of Yeosang upon the wall. His hair is long, however, and pulled back to expose his elven-tipped ears.

Jongho chuckles when he sees it, and Yeosang drinks up his unguarded mirth. The navigator eventually distills it down to “You don’t have the ears,” and the prince cocks his head.

“Elves don’t have pointed ears, unlike humans think they do.”

“I know,” replies Jongho, swinging the bag he’s responsible for carrying over his shoulder again, “it’s in your eyes.”

Yeosang is quiet for the rest of the trip through port.

v. ~

The quartermaster buys the drinks, and the entire crew decides that if they _could_ like Seonghwa more, they do now. “Another round?” Chorus San and Wooyoung as one.

Seonghwa shakes his head. “Sure,” he says, but next to Jongho, Yeosang tenses. “You should see if the stories of elven liquor are true when you have the chance.”

It is highly unfair, Jongho comes to gather, especially when Yeosang leans over to whisper in deep, dulcet tones into his ear. “I’m massless,” he admits. “I don’t weigh anything.”

A blink; the room around Jongho pitches under his feet. “So you don’t get drunk?”

“So I _can’t_ get drunk.”

Jongho hums to show he is in thought. _No, not to show, to hear—no, that is not the right word either—but at least Yeosang knows he’s thinking now._

“Are you going to tell them?”

Yeosang pushes his bangs away from his face. They have taken to curling in high humidity, so they refuse to leave without a fight; Jongho considers it endearing. Yeosang considers it annoying.

“Nope.”

~ vi.

Yeosang smells grey, of spent black powder and salt from sea spray. His hair is grey, too, but much darker, and it is cold and wet against Jongho’s neck. The navigator does not move, however, too busy holding the younger up and waiting for the adrenaline to fade. They had given him unwatered rum in case it made the operation less painful, but with his elven blood the setting of bone was not made easier. It would heal quickly, and Yunho had sat with him and sung songs of healing with gentle hands and San had donned his skin to dive under the waves and find seaweed for their newest central crew. They had set the bone and cleaned and packed the area, alcohol and fruits of the sea poured over his skin. But now Yeosang rests, although he refuses to lie flat and Jongho cannot get him out of his arms.

The taller’s breath tickles across the back of Jongho’s neck. _Desire_ sways back and forth, rocking the two of them in a slow, lilting waltz. Jongho’s eyes threaten to slip shut, and they do, but he keeps himself awake. The others bustle around them but try to keep the noise down, and the quietness makes the room seem to shake. It is gentle, and they are alive.

Stupid slip-ups happen on the seas. Jongho holds Yeosang as stubbornly as the other refuses to sleep and counts his lucky stars that it was just a crushed foot and not an eye.

vii. ~

Once again, Yeosang smells grey. He is hung with the jewels of their last plunder, and although all the booty will be traded and bartered as soon as they reach port, for now a dainty circlet and small earrings and a few silver chains Mingi had tossed over him. The metal is sea-cold against Jongho’s skin, but the warmth of Yeosang’s kisses are as familiar as the seas below them. They have precious little time until their new wealth must be exchanged for gold and spent in town, but they have all the time they are on the water and all the time they are on land together.

The kingdom procured another heir. Yeosang was not terribly surprised, and his sister was married off rather quickly, but some part of the pirate who had been a prince once upon a time was left behind, and Jongho knows this.

He will never hold Yeosang in his arms. The elf belongs to the sea, and the human belongs to the land of his kingdom. The closest Jongho can get is holding Yeosang here, upon the waves, and he counts himself lucky for this. No matter how dark the depths, Yeosang makes them as clear as the Caribbean; no matter how bright the skies, Yeosang makes them as distinct as through shaded glass.

Jongho does not lose their way once.

~ viii.

They sail into the tropics one fine spring. It is lovely weather, and Jongho finds himself smittenin the way Yeosang soaks in the sun. They drink rum on the deck when the quartermaster and captain aren’t looking, and sneak some up to Wooyoung in the crow’s nest. If Mingi commanders some as a tax when he finds them crouched behind some barrels, Yunho at the helm, nobody says anything.

It is the first time Yeosang goes purposefully swimming off the side of the boat. For a half-elf, he hasn’t been overly fond of swimming unless it is absolutely necessary.They dock in harbor and San dives overboard, rejoicing in the feeling of the water around his skin. He hasn’t donned his seal shape yet, and he splashes and plays with their princeling in the water.He presses kisses to the top of Yeosang’s head and Jongho pretends to glare at him, a touch wobbly as he leans against the railing with an amber bottle of rum dangling from lax fingers. “Come on in!” Yeosang shouts up to him, and Jongho sighs. There’s only a little he can do when Yunho is at the helm, and besides Hongjoong had forbidden him from working and dragged Seonghwa off to land to trade their trinkets and find a room for the night.

It was a thoughtful move, Jongho admits, so he strips off his shirt and dives in.

The water here is clearer than anywhere else Jongho can remember seeing through all his many travels beneath pale sails. He and Yeosang stay in the water until their skin begins to prune and then some, and the half-elf leads him to swim towards the short. San tells them he will join them in a few hours and swims back to the boat.

They find an inlet in the rock and shelter there from the world outside. There is a bit of sand kicked up, and it is warm from sun that streams through the cut top. They curl up and bask in its warmth more, uncaring that it is burning their skin and has been for the past several days.

The place is water and not water, the liminal bridge between their two halves, Jongho and Yeosang and human and elven. They stay until San finds them, and return to the ship and then into the town, where they sip on each other’s pints and listen to the raucous sounds of night in a pirate town.

viiii. ~

It is a day just like that one, far in the future, when Hongjoong and Seonghwa stand beside the helm and Yeosang and Jongho stand before each other, ringed by the crew. They are fresh off a raid, heading into port the next day, and the gulls following them are unnaturally loud in Jongho’s ears. Hongjoong speaks like he is reading lines from a memorized script, and maybe he is—Jongho has never had the chance to go to a wedding before his own, always missing them while on the sea—but the two of them understand the general gist of it. They aren’t being shot at when they kiss, either, so Jongho counts that as a plus.

Yeosang has always refused to kiss him while they’re being shot or stabbed at. Jongho has always protested that that rule is most unfair. “Fire the shots!” Seonghwa shouts, and the cannons thunder.

It is a wedding at sea, the waves and the crew and the cannons shouting as one, and although Yeosang may have lost the permanent jewels and power of his station, he is crowned by the spray of water kicked up by the hull of the ship they both love. Besides, he is a prince of the water just as much as he is a prince of the land.

Jongho, soaked by the water, pulls Yeosang close and doesn’t let him go.

**Author's Note:**

> *"he's a pirate" plays badly on a kazoo*
> 
> Thank you to the mods for being so accommodating!
> 
> Shoutout to Jess for beta reading (and loving this Yeo) and to the quarantined writers Discord for cheering me on for the final bit ♥ ♥


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